Military Space Opera

The fearsome bounty hunter Tyrus Rechs has laid a careful trap to kill an elusive and powerful criminal known as Mister Zauro for crimes orchestrated on the planet Detron. But unbeknownst to the bounty hunter, another trap has been laid just as carefully ... a trap for Tyrus Rechs himself. For Zauro is a Lizzaar, and Lizzaar crime lords are not without their defenses. Rechs is mere moments away from finishing his termination when the counter-trap is triggered. In an instant the tables are turned, the hunter becomes the hunted.

Ark Royal - the Royal Navy’s outdated space carrier - has won a smashing victory against the enigmatic aliens, capturing one of their starships and returning to Earth. Now, Admiral Theodore Smith and his crew are assigned to command a fleet charged with making a deep-penetration raid into alien territory, a fleet made up of carriers from four different nations. But with a crewman who isn't what he seems, untested pilots and international friction - and a new and dangerous alien plan - can Ted and his crew survive their mission?

Outnumbered by the superior forces and firepower of the Syndicate Worlds, the Alliance fleet continues its dangerous retreat across the enemy star system. Led by the legendary Captain John “Black Jack” Geary, who returned to the fleet after a hundred-year suspended animation, the Alliance is desperately trying to return home with its captured prize: the key to the Syndic hypernet, and the key to victory…

Prince Roger MacClintock, Tertiary Heir to the Throne of Man, was a spoiled rotten, arrogant, whiny, thoroughly useless young pain in the butt. But that was before an assassination attempt marooned the Royal Brat and his bodyguards on the planet Marduk, and before they had to march half way around the entire planet, through 120-degree heat and five-hour rainstorms in jungles full of damnbeasts, capetoads, killerpillars, and atul-grak, not to mention hostile peoples, to make their way back to port.

Samuel Rutger was out of options and out of luck. Broke and jobless, he turned to the only option that could provide for his wife and sick daughter. He became a mercenary. When he joined Breacher’s Berserkers, the galaxy’s most elite private military force, he was initially designated as a logistics specialist. Far from the front lines, Rutger never thought war would reach him, but when he is reassigned as a gunner on a grav-tank he finds himself at the tip of the spear in a bloody planetary civil war.

On its heels after the disastrous Battle of Verdant, the United Systems Alliance is taken completely by surprise when the Galactic Union launches an all-out surprise offensive that captures planet after planet. Fear and panic spread like an oxygen fire as the Union invasion fleet makes a dash for the Alliance core worlds. Sergeant Mark Rizer and the Marines and sailors of Sixth Fleet are lightyears from the front, still licking their wounds after the bitter defeat on Verdant. But there is no time to rest.

With the system engulfed in a corporate war, Jai and Peyton are yanked in different directions. Jai has joined the rebellion while Peyton is amassing a pirate fleet. But when an old friend brings the twins back together, they learn of Zona’s sinister plan to quell the rebellion and institute an iron grip over the entire solar system.

Nothing brings change like war. A surge of new tech. New weapons. New tactics. To lead a crew to victory, a captain must understand change. He must understand command and that it is a test. A test most men fail. He must be brilliant. Resourceful. Every second. Of every day. And at night during scarce moments of rest, he must sleep the sleep of the righteous. The time has come for Commander Tad Thatcher to look in the mirror. The time has come to ask himself...am I that kind of man?

When the over-driven hyperdrive on their mobile shipyard burned out, the Chhrt'ktk't abandoned it in an inhabited system along their path, hoping it would work as a decoy to buy them more time to escape the Khreetan fleet pursuing them. They didn't anticipate how far the pre-spacefaring species they turned over their broken-down maintenance facility to would subvert their plan.

Captain John Nathan Duggan and his crew are given a mission - find the missing ESS Crimson and bring it home. Little does Duggan realize, this is no ordinary mission. As he struggles against enemies both within and without, he desperately tries to unlock the mystery surrounding the Crimson's disappearance and the unknown weapons it carries. He soon discovers the missing warship might be the only hope for salvation that mankind has left. When everything is veiled in secrecy nothing is easy, as Duggan is about to find out.

She longs to know what it’s like to live among normal humans and experience simple biological pleasures like consuming alcohol, kissing a boy, and — most importantly — eating chocolate. But her mother, the infamous astroshaman leader Kyla Moonrazor, is determined to get her back, even if it means sending a bounty hunter after her.

Humanity's first colony is a project neither the Duchy of Terra nor the A!Tol Imperium can allow to fail. The planet Hope in the Alpha Centauri system has been lavished with resources and attention - but when an unknown alien force attacks the system, all of that is in danger. An ancient alien artifact is the apparent target of the attack, an artifact older than known galactic civilization. Suddenly, the backwater colony of a second-rate power is the gathering point for a confrontation of the galaxy's greatest powers.

The revelations Mark Tudor unearthed on Tactus Ares were profound. The Piraxians fell victim to the aggressive, expansionist Eridani Federation. That same confederacy funded and facilitated the Lyrae. They made Stillness. And the Guild was complicit. How does one bring exposure to something the galaxy at large would rather forget? And how does an honorable man remove corruption when its gravity consumes all? A plan is hatched in secret.

Anna Sinjari—refugee, survivor of genocide, disaffected office worker—has a close encounter that reveals universe-threatening stakes. While humanity reels from disaster, she must join a small team of civilians, soldiers, and scientists to investigate a mysterious broadcast and unknowable horror. If they can manage to face their own demons, they just might save the world.

Get ready to experience two more origin stories in the Backyard Starship universe.

Heir to the Empire begins five years after Return of the Jedi. The Rebel Alliance has destroyed the Death Star, defeated Darth Vader and the Emperor, and driven the remnants of the old Imperial Starfleet back into a quarter of the territory it once controlled. But thousands of light-years away, the last of the Emperor's warlords have taken command of the remains of the Imperial fleet - and have made two vital discoveries that could destroy the fragile new Republic.

Who is he going to work with, and will that partner be able to handle him...including his (shall we say) slightly inflated ego of himself? Even if that ego is deserved, just a little? Chief is learning to be a little more supportive, except when Chief of Security Wulfson decides a few students deserve a little more intense training. With all of the additional injuries Kaiden suffers in his extra-curricular training, will he succumb to the blue goop pain killer?

Earth's XCU sends special forces operative Dane Tanner to the isolated swampy water world of Tamil. Tanner is tasked with a simple mission: prevent the colony's self-destruction. Tamil, shrouded in dense mists and sprawling underwater forests, harbors secrets deeper than its murky waters. A rogue faction of genetic scientists has defied ethical norms, transforming themselves into the Riptili—genetically modified human-amphibians better adapted to Tamil's harsh marine environment.

Only an ember of humanity survived the first Xaros invasion. Now the Xaros return to deliver the final blow to Earth and her defenders. A moon carrying an armada of Xaros drones unleashes its deadly cargo on the solar system. Fortress Mars stands between the enemy and an ill-defended Earth. While the battle rages over the red planet, the Breitenfeld must launch a desperate mission to Pluto to cut off enemy reinforcements. Earth stands on the brink of ruin, and humanity needs every hero it can find to turn back the tide of destruction.

Jack Bennet has done the impossible: collected on a bounty in the notorious Pirate Worlds. He’s earned himself a nice boost to his reputation, a hefty payday...and a cult of enemies hell-bent on revenge. Reaching out to a friend at Fleet Intelligence lands Jack an offer he can’t refuse, but to collect, he’ll have to take the plunge back into the viper’s nest.